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Saturday, 3 August 2013

Creating time lapses on the road!

Today, we are back with a quick tutorial which I'm sure many of you will like.

What is a Timelapse?

Tim is quite a fan of time lapses, but what is that? Basically it consists of taking a lot of pictures with a few seconds between each, and then paste them together to create a movie.

The final result usually is mind blowing and helps to show what it was really like when we were somewhere special.

Making a timelapse without a computer

Today, you can make timelapses with your smartphone. There are tones of apps out there that allow to set a capture interval on your smartphone camera, and generate a video from it. But most of us have smartphones that remains mediocre for picture taking.

What if you want to use your digital camera but like me you are on the road and can't take your laptop with you?

Basically all you need is:

A DSLR camera

A smartphone or tablet with an app to render the timelapse (preferably with 3g so you can share what you produced)

.... Something is missing? Yes! You also need a way to transfer your pictures from the camera to your smartphone.

The ADATA Dashdrive AE400

We received one of these pocket drives from our partner ADATA before the trip.

I will be using the DashDrive to load the pictures from my SD-Card to my Smartphone.

Timapse without PC - Step by step

Instead of boring you with too much text, here is a picture tutorial on how to use the above listed gear to create Pro-like timelapses.

Step 1: Take the pictures with your camera

(You might want to get one of these cheap intervalometers from eBay - about $30)

Step 2: Wait and enjoy the sunset

Step 3: Transfer the pictures from the SD-Card to your Smartphone

Using the ADATA DashDrive, insert the SD-Card and launch the ADATA DashDrive Elite app.

(Make sure that you have connected to the drive over WiFi. Default password is 12345678)

In the app, go to Pictures. This should load all the picture files you have on your card.

Click on one picture download icon (right)

and then if you only have the timelapse shots on the card (which I recommend), select all (small icon at the bottom left of the app) and hit the Download button.

Wait a bit, the time it transfers all shots to your phone. It took for me about 5-8 minutes for 280 shots.

Step 4: Load the files into the timelapse render app.

To render my timelapses, I use and recommend LapseIT Pro. Its just the best and easiest to use (believe me).

In the app, go yo Gallery, and click the load folder button (second icon at the top right)

Now, browse to the ADATA Elite folder where your pictures have been downloaded to. (The folder should be at the root of your phone's storage)

For me, I just had to click once on the "..." to find it.

The pictures are in that folder. Select it and import.

The new project with all the shots should appear in the app gallery.

Step 5: Edit, tune and render your timelapse

Now is a bit more personal time. Select your project and hit details. There you can adjust in different tabs the settings of your timelapse video.

For reference, I export always in "very high" quality, mp4 codec at 1080p full sensor. For the frame rate, I use 24, but 30 is fine.
This gives the best output.

When you are ready, go to the Render tab, name it and hit ... render!

Step 6: Wait, get a coffee or something it might take between 5 to 15 minutes depending of your phone for a 10 seconds timelapse.

Step 7: Share your pride!

Congratulations!

Share this timelapse which I hope you love and enjoy!

Here is the final result:

More videos

So this is it for this tutorial. big thanks to ADATA our partner for this truly fantastic device!

We made a few more time lapses, but we keep this for another posts later next week. But if you can't wait, check here.